The plain numbers about women in tech – The Startups

I don’t often think of myself as a woman. As I approach public restrooms, I have to remind myself: “Whitney, you are a woman, use the women’s room.”

Being a woman doesn’t actively, consciously factor into my every day life, especially not professionally. While my gender must have a partial effect on everything I do — the way I interview users, draw wireframes, bill my clients — I am far from overtly feminine, nor do I consider myself to be traditionally female.

I have always wanted to be judged against all other people — male and female — and as a result, try not to play the woman card. I’ve also avoided most discussions about women in tech, women in business, women speakers, women organizations, women investors, women anything. A couple years ago I even insisted that I’m not a woman blogger.

It hasn’t ever really bothered me that there are so few women in my professional universe. I’ve always had more guy friends, went to a predominantly male university, and have worked mostly with men. But two things happened recently that rubbed me the wrong way:

Firstly, at the NY Tech Meetup a couple months ago, there were two products demoed by women. When a question from the audience was directed at one of the women-run companies, the other (male) presenters on stage started passing the mic to the wrong set of women. I’m not sure if anyone else noticed it, but it made me extremely uncomfortable. These guys couldn’t even remember which woman had demoed that product — just that it was a woman. The important detail of who didn’t seem to register.

Secondly, I was at the Boxee Box launch at Irving Plaza last month and, before the presentation started, Boxee’s team photos were projected onto the screen in a loop. I was proud to see how much the company has grown since I had worked with them in early 2009 — at the time, I had been the only woman among 10 men. But seeing the photos, I noticed that out of their 20 or so employees, practically all of the women working for them are in marketing.

It finally hit me: not only are women in tech mostly invisible, the vast majority of those who on display are selling, not making.

This is a problem. This is a big problem. At least according to ComScore [whitepaper], women are significantly more active social media and e-commerce users than men. So if the primary target audiences of most high traffic sites are women, why are only men designing and developing these systems?

I decided to take an empirical look at the gender ratio of some popular startups, just by looking at their team pages. I defined startups as < 50 employees and < 6 years old. This is by no means a comprehensive study, but I'm amazed by what I found.

Take a look for yourself...and let me know what you see.

High Profile Startups

Foursquare

Team Page: http://foursquare.com/about#
Women Employed: 6/40
Women’s Positions: Community Manager; Lead Designer; Marketing Manager; Head of Recruiting; Community Support Coordinator
Location: New York City

Loosecubes

Am I missing something?

So what do these numbers tell you? Have I forgotten about several startups with predominantly female staff? Am I unaware of some startups with more women in the “making” positions than in the “selling” ones?

Please set the record straight! Or share your thoughts on why we’re seeing this unsettling trend.

As I was applying for an all women incubator for a startup that I had, I talked about this in great detail on one of the questions. It’s so true, and so sad how much women are not in tech. Is it that there is many women in the field? Is it that we aren’t trusted to do good work? I have always been a ‘lone woman’ in my field as well. Being in IT at first and now as a UI/IA Designer and Founder of an agency and a few startups (in progress), I notice that I stand alone as a woman, especially a MINORITY woman. It’s interesting to see the actual numbers, and I wonder if it will change.

Hopefully it will, and hopefully in the future we can join each other and become stronger in numbers that will proven through our work.

Why is it sad? There are TONS of incubators, and one that just happens to ask that a women is ONE of the founders is discrimination? Is it discrimination or is it just encouragement for women? I find it sad that you would even respond to me with rebuke and criticism without really knowing my story or referencing the article in the article. I am sad for you.

Oh, I see. Discrimination is fine for you as long as it works in your favor. I know rebuke and criticism is hard to take, but sometimes that is just what is needed. I know I am making enemies by saying it. But I think it needs to be said. Somehow it is P.C. to discriminate against men.

Hahaha.. Sigh. It’s just sad to see people like him that prey on the internet to point the finger, instead of uplifting the community. People like Ted make me fearful for the future of any minority whether they are women, or a different nationality, or a different race, or sexuality who seek shelter in areas that provide support (or safety) to them to keep them away from people like him. I think this article that Whitney wrote is SPOT on and he is making her point so much more valid.

The thing I applied to was this: http://womeninnovatemobile.com/ where no one is “discriminated” but nurtured to survive in a society of ‘off color’ people who troll areas to bring people down.

Whitney – I HIGHLY respect you and have for awhile now…but, I am a bit lost with this post. Are you saying that the companies you list are purposely not adding woman – do you feel there is discrimination going on? Bias? Are there qualified woman who are not getting positions they should?

I ask because I honestly don’t know – I don’t know why your ratios are the way they are. I don’t know the hiring mindset for these companies. What I do know is that that there should be an equal balance of people within a company – but at the same time I am more for hiring the right person for the job..whomever that might.

Also, what I would have liked to see are some stats on woman in the workplace for a specific job function for true comparison. For example of 1000 engineers (most start-ups are heavy on engineers) how many are woman? Based off of that ratio could you then determine what a companies internal engineering group ratio should be right? I mean, without understanding the available pool of female workers how do you know what is going on?

I think it’s because supplies, not demands. It’s about women’s passion. one day my college’s friend asked me what is UI design? it’s because she worked previously at a girl’s magazine. It’s her passion. Like there are fewer women guitarists in this world (I was a guitarist in previously).

About discriminations, If there are indeed any, mostly it will happened after she’s accepted to work.

[…] In The Plain Numbers About Tech, Whitney Hess says: “not only are women in tech mostly invisible, the vast majority of those who on display are selling, not making. This is a problem. This is a big problem.” […]